Algae bloom

[biggin]

Anyone have a good solution for an algae bloom? My 55 has a nice green cloud…. Between it and the green substrate it is ridiculous…. Need another color....

[rolloffhill]

Extensive water changes worked for me. Cut back the lighting dramatically. I ended up putting 2 HOT mags on the tank(215g) and cleaned them out bi-hourly till it polished the water.

[poel_19]

I blacked out my 10ga with aluminum foil forms to the tank.leave it blacked out for a week. If you have plants that need high light take them out......I diddn't and they died:( but after a week blacked out 1/2 WC, oh yeah fish can be removed but dont have to be. then to get rid of the last bit a huge bunch of anarchis..... Crystal clear after that. I know sounds like a pain but I dont like to add chems if I dont have to.

[xtc]

I've used drops at Canh's suggestion- it worked like magic. I was amazed!! Stuff was dirt cheap and no side effects.

[AndrewH]

I used the cut back on lighting and stagger the light method with great success (slow but worked).

I have large plants which I didn't have anywhere else to keep them, so I cut my lighting back to 8 total hours with a 2 hour "off" or "dark" period between the first 4 hours and the second 4 hours.

Took about a month to work completely, but has been clean and clear since (about 4 months) and the last month I doubled the lighting without any problems this time (still have the 2 hour break in the middle of my "on" time even though it's 10 hours total now).

[biggin]

I think I am going to cut back on lighting, and I am going to add something to the canister to trap the phosphates. We shall see.

[bra8ndy8]

Mine has gotten cloudy this week......hummmmm

[rolloffhill]

Hmmm, mine only took about a week with polishing filters in the hot mags..

[biggin]

Did about a 30% water change with RO, swapped XP3s, changed some of the media in the filter, removed the carbon, added phos ban and now the tank looks clear. Going to try leaving the lights off more when we are not there. We shall see.